A federal judge denied the Trump administration’s request to unseal the grand jury transcripts related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s case in Florida on Wednesday.
The Trump administration has faced mounting accusations that the Justice Department wasn’t being transparent about its Epstein investigations.
Judge Robin L. Rosenberg wrote in her ruling that the court’s “hands were tied,” and that she could not release the files from the grand juries convened in West Palm Beach in 2005 and 2007, the New York Times first reported.
Rosenberg noted that transcripts are typically kept secret except in narrow circumstances.
She also wrote that the department was not requesting the transcripts for use in a judicial proceeding, which could have opened a pathway to disclose jury records.
Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to request the courts in New York and Florida to release “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval” last Thursday.
In a filing for the Manhattan transcripts on Friday, the DOJ noted that it was filing similar motions for grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s previous case in Florida, and in the trial of noted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The judge assigned to the Manhattan case wrote on Tuesday that he could not unseal the grand jury transcript “without additional submissions from the Government.”
He added that the government’s rationale that the transcripts should be unsealed due to public interest factors in the case does not adequately meet the requirements for making secret transcripts public.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a press conference that she’d “let this president speak to whether he wants to see an appeal.”
